Not all scenes made it to the
final cut of the Last
Crusade.
Here follows a list of 12 scenes that
have been left out and why.

Donovan's
Men Kidnap Indy

According to Jeffrey Boam’s
script Indy was taken to
Donovan’s apartment
against his will. In this
sequence Indy encounters
Walter Donovan's henchmen,
they pull a gun on him and
Indy agrees to follow them
because he doesn’t
want to endanger students
with a fight on campus.
Some more footage of Indy's
coerced trip to Donovan's
penthouse apartment is also
shown. In the finished film
the scene was cut considerably
and an artful cut between
the men approaching Indy
and Indy standing in Donovan's
apartment leads the story.

Flight
to Venice

Originally the film was
to show more of Indy and
Marcus on their flight
to Venice. While studying
his father's diary, Indy
finds a charcoal rubbing
of Donovan's grail tablet
and sees the stained-glass
window sketch above Roman
numerals. This foreshadows
the discovery of the secret
passage in the Venice
library and sets up Indy's
interest in making a rubbing
of the knight's shield.
What remains of this footage
was incorporated into
the montage as the familiar
red line traces Indy's
route across the globe.

Smacking
the Camel

As Marcus and Sallah
tried to run from the
Nazis at the Iskenderun
train station, there was
originally two additional
actions, one of Sallah
slapping a camel and causing
it to spit mucus all over
the Nazis nearby and another
of Sallah fighting the
Nazis.

Arriving
at Brunwald

When Indy and Elsa arrived
at the Brunwald castle
to free Henry from the
Nazis Indy presents himself
as a Scottish lord by
imitating a Scottish accent.
The suspicious butler
who opens the door acknowledges
Indy’s skim and
answers by saying, "If
you are a Scottish lord,
then I am Jesse Owens."
The reference to the black
Olympic runner who defeated
Nazi Germany at the Olympic
games of 1936 was appropriate
for the time and place,
but might have gone over
the heads of many viewers.
Lucas and Spielberg changed
the reference to the '30s
Hollywood starlet Mae
West, but decided again
that modern movie audiences
would miss the joke. So,
they settled on Mickey
Mouse, something everyone
young and old can relate
to, even though it wouldn’t
be the first thing to
come to the mind of an
elderly German butler
from the '30s.

With his bluff called
off Indy knocks the old
butler unconscious, takes
him on his back and starts
looking for a place to
hide the body while Elsa
congratulates him for
his accent. Finally, they
hide the butler in a sarcophagus
that once closed its lid
features a face similar
to the butler’s
face.
In the finished film,
we see Indy knocking off
the butler and from there
we witness Indy and Elsa
wandering in the castle
with no interest in the
butler’s body.

Hitler,
Himmler and Elsa

Originally, the sequence
in which Indy recovers
the Grail diary and gets
it signed by Hitler was
longer. Before the book
burning rally started,
Hitler was seen marching
with his lieutenants while
a woman was filming the
scene. Although her name
was not mentioned the
woman was assumed to be
Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s
official biographer. In
spite of the fact that
she was a Nazi sympathizer
Spielberg and Lucas had
great admiration for the
woman who directed two
wonderful documentaries,
The Triumph of Will and
the Festival of the Nations
for the Olympic Games
of 1936 in Berlin.

Once Indy and Henry spot
Elsa up at the high-ranking
officials infested platform,
viewers can see among
them actor Ronald Lacey,
who played Toht in Raiders
of the Lost Ark, as another
German official named
Himmler.

Leaving
the Book Burning Rally

This little scene takes
place after Hitler autographs
the grail diary in Berlin.
Indy is stopped by a Nazi
wearing a long black overcoat
who reprimands him for
intruding on the procession.
Much like the scene in
'Raiders', Indy knocks
the bossy superior officer
out cold and steals his
clothing. This brief comedic
scene explains where Indy
got the disguise he wears
at the Berlin airport
in the following scene.
Possibly it was cut to
avoid repeating the same
joke too many times.

Berlin
Airport

More of Indy's unique
brand of subterfuge was
cut in the airport sequence.
As Indy and father prepare
to buy a ticket, Indy
spots Vogel and other
Nazis standing guard at
the plane ticket lines.
He rushes Henry back through
the crowd to hide him,
then goes to the only
unguarded ticket line.
This explains why they
ended up using as unorthodox
means of travel as a zeppelin.
It seems like the scene
where Indy tells dad he
"got the first available
flight out of Germany"
was filmed as an efficient
substitute for this longer
cat-and-mouse sequence.

The
Flying Ace

Here we have a German
World War I flying ace
trying to impress fellow
zeppelin passengers with
his spectacular war stories.
This scene would have
probably cut back and
forth between the flying
ace and the conversation
between Indy and Dad over
on the other side of the
passenger lounge. After
Indy and Dad head down
below to the biplane,
everyone in the passenger
lounge is alerted to the
presence of "spies"
onboard. The drunken flying
ace jumps up to help in
catching these spies,
and with several others
he heads down below to
find that Indy and Dad
have already left in the
biplane.

Fortunately for Indy's
pursuers there is another
plane attached to the
bottom of the zeppelin.
Without thinking, the
flying ace hurriedly jumps
into the plane's cockpit
along with a young pilot
that tagged along. In
his drunken state, the
flying ace forgets to
start the plane's engine
before detaching it from
the zeppelin, therefore
causing the plane to plummet
to the ground. This scene
also features the appearance
of Indy veteran Pat Roach
as the black dressed Gestapo
agent who follows the
Flying Ace to death.

Iskenderun
Train Station

This is a brief scene
showing Indy and Henry
getting off the train
at Iskenderun to meeting
Sallah. It would have
answered the question
of how they got to Iskenderun
and meet with Sallah.
Again, this is a simple
transitional scene without
a great deal of importance
to the storyline.

Kazim's
Death

Kevork Malikyan spent
hours with Spielberg staging
his death. He was to collapse
into Alison Doody’s
arms and slide down her
body. After grabbing him,
she pulls her hands back
to find them covered with
blood. The shot never
managed to achieve the
impact Spielberg wanted
and he finally dropped
it. The scene was actually
a recreation of David
Gelin’s from Hitchock’s
remake of 'The Man Who
Knew Too Much'.

The
Canyon of the Crescent Moon

This little scene explained
how Indy and company track
the Nazis to the Canyon
of the Crescent Moon so
quickly. After surviving
the tank battle, they
witness an explosion in
the distance. The Nazis
are blasting a wider entrance
through the canyon. This
scene was part of a larger
cut story element, about
the Grail Temple being
hidden past a narrow chasm.
This also explained how
it could go undiscovered
for so long. Since Henry
has a copy of the map
to the canyon in his diary,
this transitional scene
was considered unnecessary.

The
Word of God

The second challenge
in the Grail Temple was
first planned to have
tarantulas hidden under
each wrong letter. Indy
is shown being menaced
by a tarantula crawling
up his body, after stepping
on the "J."
While in post-production
Spielberg decided the
scene didn’t had
the impact he was looking
for and he came up with
the chasm under the stone
tablets.

Sources

- Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade:
A Marvel Movie Special - Numbers
1to4 - 1989
- And many of the same sources from the Making
of the Last Crusade article.

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